Yogi Berra

Hemingway did it. So did Charles Dickens. Homer. Dostoevski. Cervantes. Noel Coward. So why shouldn't Lawrence Peter Berra write a book of his very own? After all, this literary light has given us almost as many words to live by as Ben Franklin himself. Homespun adages such as: "It ain't over till it's over," and, "Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical," or, "Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded," or, "It ain't as far as it is." He is a man who will have as many aphorisms in Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" as Will Rogers, a man who says of left field in Yankee Stadium, "It gets late early out there," who accepts a tribute by saying, "Thanks for making this night necessary," and who once explained that, because he hit from both sides of the plate, his teammate Mickey Mantle was "amphibious."

Bob Turley, 82, a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher who won the Cy Young Award in 1958 after rallying the New York Yankees past the Milwaukee Braves in the World Series, died of liver cancer Saturday in Atlanta, his family told the Baltimore Sun. Turley pitched one season for the Baltimore Orioles, 1954, leading the American League with 185 strikeouts while compiling a 14-15 record and a 3.46 earned-run average. Then "Bullet Bob," as he came to be known, was traded to the Yankees in a 17-player deal that also sent pitcher Don Larsen to New York.

On the morning of June 6, 1944, the waiting was over for Yogi Berra; it was time to go. He'd waited on June 4 and all through the night of June 5. It was his D-Day, too. He was then Lawrence Berra, 19 years old, Seaman 1st Class, U.S. Navy, and he was tossing and turning and waiting in the chop of the English Channel off the Normandy coast. Off Omaha Beach.

Moose Skowron Five-time World Series champion Moose Skowron, 81, a five-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees and the Dodgers and one of only two players to hit three home runs in the seventh games of World Series, died Friday of congestive heart failureat a hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill. He also had lung cancer. Skowron became a star as a first baseman for the Yankees and went on to appear in eight All-Star games. After his playing career ended, he returned to his native Chicago and had worked for the White Sox since 1999 in the team's community relations department.

Ralph Kiner has a book called "Kiner's Korner," and Bruce Keidan of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says, "It is astonishingly good." Kiner, a New York Mets announcer since the team's inception, naturally tells some Yogi Berra stories, including the one about Yogi's attempts on the road to reach his wife Carmen by phone. He spent four hours dialing their home in northern New Jersey without getting an answer. Finally, he succeeded in reaching her. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

New York Yankees great Yogi Berra has filed a $10-million lawsuit against TBS, claiming that the cable television network sullied his name by using it in a racy advertisement for its "Sex and the City" reruns. Berra's lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, said the ad caused "severe damage to his reputation" with its reference to Kim Cattrall's sexually promiscuous character, Samantha.

Yogi Berra is a breath of fresh air. I don't think I ever quite appreciated that before. He's a relief from the lies and the posturing and the greed of today's sports. If there were no escape, there would be no fun in the games. Like Yogi Berra telling about lying in bed in Kissimmee, Fla., last week and reading his new book until a quarter to 2 in the morning. "At quarter to 3, Larry calls and wakes me up and says Carla's having a baby," Yogi Berra said. "So I got up and went to the hospital."

Yogi Berra asked for it and today he got it: 23 tons of North Dakota spuds dropped off on his front lawn. Berra stood in the freezing rain for half an hour with a few neighbors and a battery of reporters waiting for the starchy load, which arrived at about 8 a.m. "Yogi, what are you doing to us this morning?" a neighbor yelled to the former New York Yankee manager and catcher. He replied, "Come back later, Virginia, and get some potatoes."

Yogi Berra isn't catching balls anymore, just movies. Once a month, he leaves the dugout for the balcony to become one of the most irreverent film critics the movie industry has ever known on TV's "Yogi at the Movies." With his delightful malapropisms, Berra doesn't examine artistic merit or a film's plot but just tells viewers if he enjoyed it.

Famed English soccer coach Sir Bobby Robson passed away Friday, prompting retrospective newspaper articles that focused on Robson's Yogi Berra-esque use of the English language. The Scottish Sun recalled numerous examples, including these: After playing Cameroon in the 1990 World Cup: "We didn't underestimate them. They were just a lot better than we thought." "There will be a game where somebody scores more than Brazil and that will be the game they lose." "Ray Wilkins' day will come one night."

A struggling German soccer team just set a precedent that ought to cause Clippers management some anxiety: Energie Cottbus of Germany's Bundesliga is offering an apology to the more than 600 fans who traveled to another city to watch Energie lose to Schalke, 4-0. The loss was the sixth in seven games for Energie, which is second from the bottom in the Bundesliga and struggling to avoid relegation to a lower league -- another concept the Clippers hope the NBA never adopts.

Pop quiz: What comes to mind when you think about Yogi Berra, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Toni Morrison? Brilliant minds, inspiring souls, trailblazers: All are likely answers. And . . . New Jersey? All have strong ties to the oft-maligned Garden State, and they're among the first 15 people to be inducted today into New Jersey's new Hall of Fame. "I think anything you get inducted to you feel good about," said 82-year-old Berra, the former New York Yankee catcher -- and a member of the baseball Hall of Fame -- who lives in Montclair in northern New Jersey.

Maybe Charlie Silvera would have been an everyday catcher for the St. Louis Browns or the Washington Senators, or any of the other lower-division teams dwarfed by the dynastic New York Yankees of the late 1940s and early '50s. Or, at the very least, maybe he would have been part of a platoon. But Charlie Silvera didn't play for a lowly, wannabe contender. Silvera played for the mighty Yankees, which meant that he was a backup to Yogi Berra. Which meant, of course, that he rarely played at all.

Yogi Berra, Bill James and Jim Brosnan will be inducted today into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of Eternals. James, whose statistical analyses have added a new level of insight into the game, will be on hand for the induction at 2 p.m. at the Pasadena Central Library, 285 E. Walnut St., Pasadena. Admission is free. Information: (626) 791-7647.

Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees' Hall of Fame catcher who hit 358 home runs, celebrated his 80th birthday last week. He is also known for the following Yogi-isms, as cited on his website: * "It ain't over till it's over." * "Never answer an anonymous letter." * "I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four." * "It's deja vu all over again." * "When you come to a fork in the road ... take it." * "I didn't really say everything I said." * "I want to thank you for making this day necessary."

New York Yankees great Yogi Berra has filed a $10-million lawsuit against TBS, claiming that the cable television network sullied his name by using it in a racy advertisement for its "Sex and the City" reruns. Berra's lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, said the ad caused "severe damage to his reputation" with its reference to Kim Cattrall's sexually promiscuous character, Samantha.

Alex Rodriguez says he wants what Yogi Berra has: 10 World Series championships. Berra, famous for his Yogi-isms, could also offer a little advice, such as: * "Never answer an anonymous letter." * "Take a two-hour nap, from 1 to 4." * "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." * "You can observe a lot by watching." * "The future ain't what it used to be." Trivia time: When was the first game with Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Gary Payton all in the starting lineup?